


dry bones can harm no one

by timeisweird



Series: snapshots [7]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Adventure, Gen, One Shot, Prompt Fill, Suspense
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-09
Updated: 2019-07-09
Packaged: 2020-06-25 13:14:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 623
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19746481
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/timeisweird/pseuds/timeisweird
Summary: Donna's alone, deep under the city of Paris, buried with the darkness and the bones of the dead, and something's lurking nearby. At least she's got the Doctor on speed dial.





	dry bones can harm no one

**Author's Note:**

> prompt: "'I have faith in you' ten to donna'" from tumblr user okayyesiknow 
> 
> sorry this took like... actually seven months... (it only took me less than an hour to actually write, the seven months were for thinking of _what_ to write)

It’s cold, damp, and pitch dark. The screen of her mobile would give off a little bit of light, but she’s got her eyes shut tight against that, ensuring that she can’t see a thing. “Doctor,” she breathes into the receiver, “I don’t think I can do this…”

Their reply is quiet, tinny, tense. _“Yes you can, it’ll be fine. You’ve got your left hand on the wall, yeah?”_

“Yeah.”

_“Haven’t lifted it up at all?”_

“Nope.”

_"Then everything will be fine! You’ll be out of there in a jiffy. Or maybe slightly longer than a jiffy, but–”_

“Doctor?”

_"Yeah?”_

_“Please_ , for the love of God,” she begs, “shut it.”

It feels like her heart’s in her mouth, the way it races in her chest, nearly painful. She can barely make herself breathe, and it’s starting to make her a bit dizzy. It doesn’t help her to know that the ‘wall’ the Doctor is talking about isn’t made up of cobbled stone, but in fact is the human-remain filled racks of Paris’s catacombs. At least it’s all dry bone by this point. 

She can’t hear the Doctor’s breath over the phone (and they’ve finally given her a moment of silence, though she might be regretting that right about now), but she can hear something shuffling around in the darkness, beyond the noise she herself makes, stumbling through the labyrinth. A light, hollow clinking coming from somewhere ahead of her. 

Her fingers feel the wall turn outwards slightly, the beginning of a turn in the corridor, or the approach of an intersection. She keeps her hand against the wall, moving with it to the left. Now the shuffling is to her right. It seems louder, closer. 

She freezes. “Doctor…” 

Somehow, they already seem to know the situation. _“Don’t look at it, okay? It won’t bother you if you don’t bother it. Keep your eyes closed, you don’t need the light. Keep your hand on the wall, keep steady, and_ don’t _look at it.”_

“I know, I know,” she says, trying to sound as calm as she can. She doesn’t know what _it_ is, but her imagination runs wild when she’s so deep underground, in the final resting places of millions of people. Whatever’s nearby, whatever’s hiding in the darkness, it almost sounds like… the rattling of bones. “I just – I’m _going_ to kill you, when I get out of this.”

She can practically hear their smile. _“That’s what I want to hear.”_

“Is it?” she demands, louder than she should. “Is it _really?”_

There’s a clamor of noise that rushes towards her and stops just as suddenly. She can almost feel its breath in front of her. If it breathes at all. She squeaks, and holds herself as still as she can, clutching her mobile like it’s a lifeline. Knowing the Doctor, it basically is. 

_“It’s okay! It’s okay, Donna, you’re okay,”_ comes the Doctor’s rushed voice. _“Just stay still for a moment, let it lose interest, then we’ll keep moving forward. Got your hand against the wall?”_ She flexes her fingers. Feels the cold, brittle bone under her touch.

“Yeah.” It’s barely audible to her, but that doesn’t seem to trip up the Doctor. 

_“Good. You can do this, Donna. I’ve got faith in you. Wait a little bit longer, and then keep following the wall, okay?”_

“Okay,” she whispers. She hopes she sounds confident. She hopes the Doctor is as confident as they sound. She _really_ hopes that she doesn’t ever catch a glimpse of what’s been following her through these catacombs, but really, she’s been through stuff like this before, and she knows _that_ wish is a bit too hopeful.

She can’t hear anything around her anymore. Time to get moving. 

**Author's Note:**

> the title is from t.s eliot's _the wasteland part V: what the thunder said_


End file.
